V. I. Lenin

Socialist-Revolutionary Party
      Cheats The Peasants Once Again

Written:20 October, 1917First Published:6 November, 1917, inRobochy PutNo. 44. Published according to the
      newspaper textSource:Lenin’sCollected
      Works, Progress Publishers, Moscow, Volume 26, 1972,
      pp. 228-233Translated:Yuri Sdobnikov and George
      Hanna, Edited by George HannaTranscription & HTML Markup:Charles
      Farrell and David WaltersOnline Version:Lenin Internet ArchiveNovember,
      2000

TheSocialist-Revolutionary
	Partyhas made a solemn and public announcement, in its
      chief newspaper,Dyelo Naroda,of October 18 and 19,
      that the Minister of Agriculture’s new land bill is a
      “major step towards the implementation of the Party’s
      agrarian programme”, and that the “Party’s
      Central Committee insistently urges all Party organisations to
      launch a vigorous campaign in favour of the bill and popularise
      it among the masses”.

Actually, however, this bill, produced by the Minister,
      S. L. Maslov, who is a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary
      Party, and summarised inDyelo Naroda,is afraud
      on the peasants.The S.R. Party has deceived the peasants:
      it has crawled away from its own land bill and has adopted the
      plan of the landowners and Cadets for a “fair
      assessment” and preservation of landed proprietorship. At
      its congresses during the first Russian revolution (1905) and
      the second Russian revolution (1917), the S.R. Party solemnly
      and publicly committed itself to the peasant demand forconfiscationof the landed estates, that is, for their
      transfer to the peasantswithout compensation.Under
      Mr. Maslov’s present project, however, not only are the
      landed estates left intact but thelandlord,s are also to
      getthe “fairly” assessed rent paid by the
      peasants for the “leased” lands.

This bill of Mr. Maslov’s is downright betrayal of the
      peasants by the S.R. Party, and signifies its complete
      subservience to the landed proprietors. The utmost must be done,
      every effort must be made to drive this fact home to the widest
      possible sections of peasants.

On October 18,Dyelo Narodacarried Clauses 25-40 of
      Maslov’s bill. Here are its main points:

(1)Not alllanded estates are to go into the proposed
      “provisional lease pool”.

(2) Landed estates are pooled byland committeesset up
      under the law of April 21, 1917, which was issued by Prince
      Lvov’s government oflanded proprietors.

(3) The rent paid by the peasants for these tracts is to be
      fixed by the land committees “in accordance with the net
      income” and after deduction of various payments goes to the
      “rightful owner”,thatis,the landed
	proprietor.

This is a triple fraud worked on the peasants by the
      Socialist-Revolutionaries, and each of these three points must
      be dealt with in greater detail.

Izvestia Vserossiiskogo Soveta Krestyanskikh DeputatovNo. 88, dated August 19, carries a “model mandate drawn up
      on the basis of 242 mandates submitted by deputies from various
      localities to the First All-Russia Congress of Soviets of
      Peasants’ Deputies held in Petrograd in 1917”.

This summary of 242 mandates, made by representatives of
      peasants in the localities, gives thebestidea ofwhat the peasants want.This summarised mandate shows
      very well that the project of Maslov and the SB. Party is a
      swindle.

The peasants are demanding the abolition of the right to private
      ownership of land; the conversion ofallprivate land
      holdings, etc., into the property of the whole people, without
      compensation; the conversion of land tracts farmed on a highly
      efficient level (orchards, plantations, etc.) into "model
      farms”, their transfer to “the exclusive use of the
      state and the communes”; the confiscation of“alllivestock and farm implements”, etc.

Such is the clear-cut statement of the peasant demands based on
      242 local mandates submitted by the peasants themselves.

But the S.R. Party, having entered “a coalition” (that
      is, an alliance or agreement) with the bourgeoisie (the
      capitalists) and the landowners, and taking part in the
      government of capitalists and landowners, has now produced a
      bill whichdoes not abolish landed propertybut
      transfersonly a partof the landed estates into aprovisional lease pool.

Under the bill,noorchards, plantations, beet fields,
      etc., can go into the lease pool!Norcan the pool
      include lands required “to satisfy the needs of the owner,
      his family, employees and workers, or to ensure the maintenance
      of available livestock”!

This means that the great landowner who has a sugar refinery, a
      potato processing plant, oil or other mill, orchards and
      plantations, hundreds of head of cattle and dozens of employees
      and workers, is to retain agreat estate farmed on
      capitalist lines.The S.R. Party has indeed cheated the
      peasants with exceptional brazenness.

Landed estates, or “privately held land”, as the bill
      puts it, are to be transferred to the lease pool byland
      committeesset up under the law of April 21, 1917, by the
      government oflanded proprietorsheaded byPrince
      Lvovand Co., the selfsame government of Milynkov and
      Guchkov, the imperialists and plunderers of the masses, who were
      routed by the workers’ and soldiers’ movement in
      Petrograd on April 20 and 21, i.e., a full six months ago.

The land committee law issued by this government of landed
      proprietors is, of course, far from being a democratic (popular)
      law. On the contrary, it contains a whole series of outrageous
      departures from democracy. Take its Clause lit, which gives the
      “gubernia[1]land committees the right to suspend
      decisions of thevolostanduyezdcommittees, pending a final ruling by the central land
      committee”. Under this swindling landowners’ law, the
      committees are so constituted that theuyezdcommittee
      is less democratic than thevolostcommittee, theguberniacommittee is less democratic than theuyezdcommittee, and the central committee is less
      democratic than theguberniacommittee.

Thevolostland committee is entirely elected by the
      population of thevolost. Under the law, for instance,
      theuyezdcommittee must include the local magistrate
      and five members of “provisional executive committees”
      (pending the establishment of a new local government body). Theguberniacommittee includes a member of the circuit
      court and a magistrate, and also a representative of the
      ministry who isappointedby the minister, etc. The
      central land committee consists of 27 members “invited to
      sit on it by the Provisional Government”! This includes one
      each from the 11 political parties, with the majority (6 out of
      11) going tothe Cadets and those to the right of them.Isn’t this an obvious swindle on the part of Lvov,
      Shingaryov (who signed the bill) and their friends? Isn’t
      this simply flouting democracy to please the landed proprietors?

Does this not bear out the repeated Bolshevik statement that the
      will of the peasantry can be correctly expressed and implemented
      only by theSoviets of Peasants’ Deputies,electedby the mass of working peopleand subject to recall at
      any time?

The Socialist-Revolutionaries, who were returned in a majority
      to the All-Russia Executive Committee of the Soviets of
      Peasants’ Deputies by the unsuspecting peasants, have nowbetrayedthem; they havesold outthe peasant
      Soviets,gone over to the landowners,and accepted the
      land committee law of Prince Lvov, the landed
      proprietor. Therein lies the second big fraud which the
      Socialist-Revolutionaries have worked on the peasants.

This makes it all the more imperative for us, the workers’
      party, to reiterate the Bolshevik demand: all power in the
      countryside to the Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies and
      Agricultural Labourers’ Deputies!

The peasant mandates demand the confiscation, that is, the
      alienation of landed estateswithout compensation,and
      the confiscation of stud farms, private pedigree stock-breeding
      and poultry farms, the transfer to state use of all highly
      efficient farms, and the confiscation of all livestock and
      implements on the landed estates.

Instead, the S.R. ministerial bill treats the peasants to apreservation of rent,which is still to go into
      landlords’ coffers.

“Rent,” says Clause 33 of the S.R. bill, “shall
      be paid to the committees, which shall hand over the remainder
      [after various payments to the Treasury, etc.] to the rightful
      owner.”

That is how the “Socialist-Revolutionaries”, having
      cheated the peasants with fine promises, now present them with alandowner-Cadetland bill!

This is a swindle, pure and simple.

Nothing at all remains of the peasant demand for
      confiscation. This is not confiscation of landed estates, butconsolidationof landed property by a
      “republican” government whichassuresthe
      landownersretentionof both implements and land for
      the maintenance of their “employees and workers”, the
      retention of land “designated by the landowner [it’s
      as easy as that!] for the planting of sugar-beet and other
      industrial crops”,and of paymentfor the rest of
      the land which goes into the lease pool. The land committees are
      turned intorent collectorsfor the landed gentry!

The Socialist-Revolutionaries do not abolish but consolidate
      landed property. It is now abundantly clear that they have
      betrayed the peasants and have defected to the landowners.

The sly Cadets, these loyal friends of the capitalists and
      landowners, must not be allowed to bring off their fraud. The
      Cadets make believe that the S.R. bill is terribly
      “revolutionary”, and there is a great outcry in all
      the bourgeois papersagainstit; they all report“opposition”on the part of the bourgeois
      ministers (and, of course, of their avowed hangers-on like
      Kerensky) to this “terrible” bill. The whole thing is
      a farce, a game; it is the bartering of a trader who expects to
      drive a harder bargain with the spineless
      Socialist-Revolutionaries. Actually, Maslov’s is alandowners’bill drawn upfor the express
      purposeof securing an agreement with them and saving them.

It is pure humbug forDyelo Narodato declare, as it
      does in these issues, that it is “an outstanding land bill
      inaugurating [!] a great [!!] reform in socialising [!!!]
      land”. There is no trace of “socialisation” in
      the bill (save perhaps for the “social” help given the
      landlord in assuring him of his rent); there is not the least
      trace of anything “revolutionary or democratic”; there
      is in fact nothing at all in it with the exception of the
      Irish-type “reforms”[Land reforms
      intiated by the British due to pressure from the radical Irish
      Land movement]which are a common feature of Europeanbourgeois reformism.

Let me say this again: it is a billto savethe
      landowners, andto “pacify”the incipient
      peasant uprising by making concessions on trifles and allowing
      the landowners to keep what is important.

The fact that the Socialist-Revolutionaries have submitted such
      a mean bill to the government really shows the incredible
      hypocrisy of those who accuse the Bolsheviks of
      “frustrating” the Constituent Assembly with their
      plans for transferring power to the Soviets. “Only 40 days
      till the Constituent Assembly”—Cadets, capitalists,
      landowners, Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, all have
      joined in this hypocritical cry. Meanwhile, they slip the
      government a sweeping land bill,swindlingthe
      peasants,saddlingthem with landlords,consolidatinglanded property.

When it comes to supporting the landowners against the mounting
      peasant uprising, a sweeping billcanbe rushed through
      40 and even 30 days before the Constituent Assembly is due to
      meet.

When it comes to transferring all power to the Sovietsin
      orderto hand overallthe land to the peasants,at onceabolish landed property andat onceoffer a just peace, then Cadets, capitalists, landowners,
      Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries all join in the howl
      against the Bolsheviks.

The peasants must know how they have been cheated and betrayed
      to the landowners by the Socialist-Revolutionary Party.

The peasants must know that it is only theworkers’party, theBolsheviks,who are
      prepared to stand to the last for the interests of thepoorpeasants andallworking peopleagainstthe capitalists and the landowners.

October 20, 1917.

[1]Gubernia, uyezd, volost—Russian administrative
      territorial units. The largest of these was thegubernia, divided intouyezds,which in turn
      were subdivided intovolosts. This system continued
      under Soviet power until the introduction of the new system of
      administrative territorial divisions in 1929-30.